Ten minutes later
by Wyndes
Summary: Not a story, just a scene, of what might have happened ten minutes after the end of episode 4.9.


_A/N: Not a story, just a scene. I was watching the last episode again and wishing we didn't have to wait until June and started wondering what had happened next. And, of course, I don't own Eureka or any of its characters._

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_Cafe Diem_

"Talk to me about your dad."

"What?" Zoe laughed, a little uncertainly.

"Has he been weird lately?"

Zoe looked a little taken aback but then thought about the question. "Well, he came to visit me at school, and yeah, he was kind of strange. I was pretty sure something was wrong back here. But he never said anything more about it and I figured it was nothing. Why are you asking?"

"What's different about him?"

"You mean apart from him and Alison? Because I'm all for that, but you know, after years of him being crazy about her from a distance, it's just a little strange to watch them be all cute and cuddly."

"Apart from that. What else?"

"Are we really going to talk about my dad all night?" Zoe reached out and put a hand over Zane's.

He didn't pull back, but he didn't turn his hand up either. "You're great, Zoe," he said, his voice calm. "You're smart, you're cute, it drives your dad crazy that we're out together. All good points. But you're way too young for me and…" he shrugged.

"It's not even that," he added thoughtfully. Zoe pulled her hand back, although Zane's hadn't stirred, as Zane continued. "There's something going on and I really want to know what it is. And you must want to know, too. You do know that something's weird, right?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," Zoe was determined not to show him how she felt. Okay, so it wasn't as if she was madly in love or anything, but still - she could tell she was being rejected. And being rejected sucked, even when it was delivered with the surface friendliness that Zane was showing.

He looked at her and his mouth twisted thoughtfully. Zoe's chin went up. He was deciding whether she could be trusted, whether she was worth talking to. She could see it in his face. And damn it, even if they weren't going to be a couple, she was not about to be dismissed by this guy. If something was going on with her dad, she wanted to know what it was.

"Talk to me," she said succinctly. "Tell me what you know, Let me figure out how what I know might fit in."

Zane was still considering her, his eyes narrowed. "Lupo," he said finally. "What's your relationship with her?"

"Jo?" Zoe laughed with disbelief. "What are you talking about, Zane? Jo's…Jo." She shrugged.

"She hasn't changed at all?"

Zoe paused. Had Jo changed? She shook her head, slowly. "No…no, she hasn't. What are you thinking, Zane? Tell me," her voice was insistent.

He glanced around at their surroundings. They were in Café Diem, of course, eating a casual dinner. Not an hour ago, he'd kissed Jo in the sheriff's office. It had been the most intense eight seconds of his life. It wasn't a first kiss. He knew it wasn't a first kiss. And yet…it must have been. It had to have been, because he had never, and would have never, kissed Jo Lupo before.

But - there was still no way that was a first kiss. The clash between reality and certainty was killing him. He knew he'd never kissed Jo. Oh, he'd imagined it. More than once, more, probably, than a few hundred times. She was the woman he thought of, late at night, when he was alone. But he had never touched her. And yet - he must have. Somehow, some when…

Some…when.

Holy shit, they'd changed the timeline. That, at last, fit. That made sense. Well, apart from the fact that it was completely impossible. Zane was a physicist. He knew time travel couldn't happen. He knew, in fact, all the reasons why time travel simply did not fit with any reasonable model of the universe. Even quantum mechanics-

"What?" Zoe demanded. "What did you just think of?"

Zane just looked at her, still trying to process…"Wow, I wonder what…"

"Tell me!"

He shook his head,

Zoe put her hand back over his, but this time she grabbed his pinky finger. "Tell me, or I break your finger," she whispered to him, bending his finger backward but gently, not with any real force

"Ouch," he choked out a laugh. "If I hadn't already figured out that there's something disastrous about you and me, that would be really hot. But-" he shook his head again.

"What do you mean, disastrous?" Zoe asked, letting go of his finger. Probably the difference between her and Jo was that she really couldn't break his finger, even if she wanted to, whereas Jo would have pragmatically shrugged and said, "Eh, just a finger, it'll heal."

He leaned forward and whispered, "Your dad and Jo - and probably at least a couple other people - have traveled in time. It's the only thing that makes sense - even though it doesn't make any sense at all. But if we accept that they could have done that, then that something they did screwed up the timeline, then everything weird about the way they've been behaving suddenly makes sense."

"That's-" Zoe wanted to laugh it off. Really, she wanted to tell him how ridiculous he was being. But she couldn't help remembering her dad's visit to Harvard, his endless litany of questions, his weirdness, the way he was clinging to Alison now…

"Okay," she said slowly. She started to nod. "Okay, that…that's weird, but that could be. But - what does it mean?" Was her dad not her dad? Did he not really know her? Was he a stranger?

"Any dessert for you two?" Vincent asked cheerfully.

Zoe stared at Zane.

He shrugged at her.

"Sure," she said to Vincent. "We'll have two brownie sundaes."

If you were suddenly confronted with the idea that the people you loved weren't really the people you knew at all, chocolate was good. Very good.


End file.
